Pretend

I've gotten good at this game of pretend.
I've learned how to wear this mask.
I've found the best way to lie.
And I know you'll believe me every time.

You'll let me feed you untruths and tales, because you don't want to know what I hide, you don't want to see what I keep covered. I can't lay any blame, though. It is, in the end, my own fault. It falls to me that I lost control, that I fell apart, that I broke down. So I continue weaving my dark webs and spinning my secrets, all the while trapping in them sweet moments, like the dew reflecting sunlight while the beast lurks beneath.

You know how people say "here are the facts" and list some out? This is my version.

Here are the lies that you will continue to believe:

I didn't cry yesterday.
I didn't write a ten-page letter I will never send.
I didn't wish that everything was different.
I didn't collapse because I couldn't hold myself up anymore.
I didn't blame coincidence.
I didn't wait for something I knew would never come.
I didn't offer up my soul for any change.
I didn't long to shatter the world within my gaze.

But there's one thing that is true that I didn't do--
I didn't let you see the truth.

Perhaps I sealed my fate in that decision not to speak. Perhaps I lost myself and the world in the course of that day. But it means nothing. In the end, the world will all fall away, the pain will dissipate, the agony no longer tear at me. And until then, I have learned to play this game. I have learned to tempt life and drag myself out, just barely. So here I am. Here I stand. The wide world before me, just waiting for it all to end.

For now, I continue to just pretend.